SONICXQ™ -THE INDUSTRY’S FIRST ENTERPRISE SERVICE BUS (ESB) IS DELIVERED

SonicXQ™ cuts customers' costs while making it easier to integrate new
applications and web services into existing infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., JavaOne Booth #530 - March 25, 2002 - Progress Software subsidiary, Sonic Software today
announced that SonicXQ™ is the first Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to be made available to the market.

The SonicXQ ESB provides a standards-based service-oriented architecture for business integration using web
services and the J2EE™ Connector Architecture. SonicXQ increases business agility by making it easier for
organisations to incorporate new applications and services into their business, and Sonic’s standards-based
approach to distributed integration is more flexible and cost effective than using integration brokers or
application servers. SonicXQ’s distributed architecture is unique, allowing systems architects to locate
integration services, such as transformation, anywhere within the ESB and to scale these services
independently of one another.

Gartner Dataquest predicts that by 2004 enterprise IT architectures will take on a different look, with the
enterprise’s data, analytics and business intelligence systems integrated into a single core infrastructure
that supports all the operational components driving the processes.

SonicXQ is the first commercial implementation of such an architecture. Applications and services can be
‘plugged-in’ to the SonicXQ ESB to share information with other applications and services on the bus.
Pre-built, configurable services included with SonicXQ perform integration functions such as content-based
routing and XML transformation to ensure information can be used by any application on the bus, without
additional coding.

Sonic Software, the world’s fastest growing Internet middleware company, designs and develops the Sonic range
of products in the USA. In Europe, they are distributed by Progress Software.

“SonicXQ gives enterprise architects a better way to approach business integration that is more flexible and
cost effective,” said Danny Goodall, marketing director Sonic Products at Progress EMEA. “SonicXQ is the first
product to deliver on the vision of an ESB that acts as a network where applications and services can share
information across the enterprise and between businesses.”

Key product features include:

- Standards-based Integration?SonicXQ’s support for Web services and J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA)
technologies provides a standards-based infrastructure for integrating applications within the enterprise and
across the Internet. SonicXQ easily integrates existing and future applications, including those built with
J2EE and .NET, in addition to packaged and legacy applications.

- Distributed Processing Framework?SonicXQ’s Distributed Processing Framework provides the ability to
configure, deploy, and manage services across the enterprise. Unlike centralised application servers or
integration brokers, SonicXQ’s unique distributed service container-based architecture allows individual
services to be located anywhere within the ESB for optimal flexibility, and further allows services to be
managed and scaled independently of each other for operational efficiency. Location transparency allows
services to be upgraded, moved, or replaced without having to modify any code.

Several companies have already selected the SonicXQ ESB to provide standards-based integration, including
ABNA, a subsidiary of £4.4bn Associated British Foods PLC (ABF PLC) and Sonera, a leading Finnish-based
provider of mobile and advanced telecommunications services.

“SonicXQ will allow ABNA to easily integrate with trading partners by simply sending the properly formatted
messages over a secure Internet connection, a far cry from the expensive custom integration efforts we go
through now,” said Mysia Benford, IT Director of ABNA. “SonicXQ will allow us to use an open, standards based,
system to integrate all our disparate enterprise systems within our organisation.”

About Progress Software

Progress Software is a global supplier of software technology and services for developing, deploying,
integrating and managing e-business solutions. The company provides a comprehensive suite of products that
includes application development tools, application servers, the leading e-business messaging server SonicMQ,
and the industry's most widely used, lowest-cost-of-ownership embedded database.

Progress Software’s partners include more than 2000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and application
service providers (ASPs) who supply annually over $5 billion in Progress®-based applications and related
services. Over 40,000 organisations across more than 100 countries - including 70% of the Fortune 100 - rely
on Progress-based applications. The Progress Company, and Sonic Software are operating companies of Progress
Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS). Sonic Software designs and develops the Sonic range of products in the
USA. In Europe, they are distributed by Progress Software. Progress Software Corporation is headquartered in
Bedford, Mass., and can be reached in the UK at 01753 216300 or on the web at http://www.progress.com

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SonicXQ, SonicMQ and the Sonic Software logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sonic Software
Corporation in the United States and other countries. Java and all Java-related marks are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Any other trademarks
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